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Hamburg Recordings 1967

The Monks - a strange, rare group with a story that sounds like a drunk friend's generoushyperbole. A group of American G.I.s stationed in Germany on the precipice of Westerncultural revolution starts playing music loosely connected to the rock n' roll craze,contrastingly incorporating a critical and often offensive avant-garde edge. Nothingwas off limits - screeching vocals, dark aesthetics, staccato-strummed banjo, sardoniclyricism, critiques of the Vietnam War and full monk costuming down to the tonsure.When viewed on the whole, it seems like an art school student's senior thesis on whatthe craze means and its future possibilities. Due in large part to original Polydor vinylcollectability and years in the word-of-mouth hype machine, their legend and cult statushas steadily blossomed since their last shows in 1967.

"I'm Watching You" would have been recorded on February 28th, 1967 at the samesessions that would produce the Monks' final single "Love Can Tame the Wild" b/w "HeWent Down to the Sea." The remaining four songs were recorded after hours in the TopTen Club later that year, just prior to the break-up of the band.

These songs have been unreleased for 50 years and are quite possibly the last music leftto be heard by this legendary band.

Monk's Dream

Monk's Dream is the first album jazz musician Thelonious Monk released on Columbia Records. It was recorded in 4 days in autumn 1962 and issued a year later. The Thelonious Monk Quartet consisted of Monk (piano), Charlie Rouse (tenor sax), John Ore (bass), and Frankie Dunlop (drums). Jazz scholars and enthusiasts alike also heralded this combo as the best Monk had been involved with for several years. Although he would perform and record supported by various other musicians, the tight dimensions that these four shared has rarely been equaled in any genre.

On tracks such as Five Spot Blues and Bolivar Blues, Rouse and Dunlop demonstrate their uncanny abilities by squeezing in well-placed instrumental fills, while never getting hit by the unpredictable rhythmic frisbees being tossed about by Monk. Augmenting the six quartet recordings are two solo sides: Just a Gigolo and Body and Soul. Most notable about Monk's solo work is how much he retained the same extreme level of intuition throughout the nearly two decades that separate these recordings from his initial renderings in the late '40s.

The Unique Thelonious Monk

Thelonious Monk's second album for Riverside continued the label's initial plant to broaden his audience by the use of recognizable standard tunes instead of his somewhat frightening originals. Thelonious's uncompromising performances, major-league support from Art Blakey and Oscar Pettiford, and strong material all helped turn this concept into lastingly superior jazz. Particularly notable are his sharp thrusts of humor on such well-worn pieces as Honeysuckle Rose and Tea for Two. The album's impact was strengthened by one of the most unique covers ever devised, Riverside actually went so far as to print quantities of almost postage-sized Monk stamps.

1. Liza (All the Cloud'll Roll Away)2. Memories of You3. Honeysuckle Rose4. Darn That Dream5. Tea for Two6. You are too Beautiful7. Just You, Just Me

Solo Monk

1964 Album True To Its Title: Nothing But Monk, His Fingers, And The Piano

Perhaps The Solo Piano Record To Have By Monk" - Thom Jurek / Allmusic

Mastered From Original Master Tapes By Bernie Grundmand

Pressed On 180gram Audiophile-grade Vinyl At Pallas In Germany

Monk's 1946 solo affair ranks among the pioneering pianist's most introspective, cerebral, and emotional outings. His trademark angularity informs a majority of the pieces, yet so does grand classicism and melodic rapture. Monk's readings of the originals and standards practically stand the tunes on their collective ears. Solo Monk is simply amazing. And now, mastered from the original master tapes, this 180gram LP brings all the music closer, and into more transparent form, than ever before.

Straight, No Chaser

Features The Complete, Unedited Performances Of Thelonious Monk's Classic Sessions

Mastered From The Original Tapes By Kevin Gray And Robert Pincus At Cohearant Audio

Pressed At RTI For Superior Playback Quality

Monk's introspective 6th LP for Columbia contains some of the pianist's most mature works, including a striking re-working of the classic title track, an evocative modal twist on Japanese folk music, and the swinging bop of We See, all lensed through the transformative interplay of his quartet (also featured on Monk's Dream). Impex's deluxe all-analog 2-LP set includes the original six tracks (three of which are presented in their original uncut length on LP for the first time) and the bonus track Green Chimneys. These extensions, beautifully remastered by Kevin Gray and Robert Pincus at Cohearent Audio, give fuller, richer expression to Thelonious Monk's genius as a performer of unparalleled spiritual and technical facility.

1. Locomotive2. I Didn't Know About You3. Straight, No Chaser4. Japanese Folk Song5. Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea6. We See7. Green Chimneys*

Monk

Monk is an album by jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk recorded for the Prestige label and performed by Monk with two quintets, one featuring Julius Watkins, Sonny Rollins, Percy Heath, and Willie Jones and one featuring Ray Copeland, Frank Foster, Curly Russell, and Art Blakey.

Straight No Chaser

A few years after recording Straight, No Chaser, Thelonious Monk disappeared from the public eye. But as the years passed, more people became aware of the seminal role he played in the development in jazz as both pianist and composer, creating a standard of excellence that many musicians after him aspire to.

Produced by Teo Macero, who was also responsible for legendary albums such as Miles Davis' Kind Of Blue and Dave Brubeck's Time Out!, Monk's Straight, No Chaser is a classic in its own right. It's the last album the talented pianist and composer recorded with his quartet consisting of Larry Gales on bass, Ben Riley on drums and his musical soul mate Charlie Rouse on tenor sax. It includes a light yet mature version of one of his standards; Straight, No Chaser is one idea played again and again, each time in a different part of the measure and with a different ending, and highlights some stellar action between Monk and Rouse.

1. Locomotive2. I Didn't Know About You3. Straight, No Chaser4. Japanese Folk Song5. Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea6. We See

Misterioso

Originally released in 1965 and produced by Jazz great Teo Macero, this Hard Bop album by Thelonious Monk is an essential part of Monk fans, and rightfully belongs in any Jazz collection for that matter.

Misterioso (Recorded On Tour) contains 8 powerful live performances at venues such as Brandeis University, Lincoln Center and The Village Gate in New York and the Newport Jazz Festival during the early Sixties, when Jazz was pushed into further directions.

This album features Thelonious Monk on piano, Larry Gales and Butch Warren on double bass, Ben Riley and Frankie Dunlop on drums and longtime Monk band member Charlie Rouse on tenor sax.

It's Monk's Time (Speakers Corner)

With its three compositions by Thelonious Monk, one might call this LP from 1964 "3 Standards and 3 Monks". The 'High Priest' of bebop had reached a further pinnacle in his career and performed with his fantastic, skilful and well-rehearsed quartet at numerous festivals and concerts. As if in a dream, the musicians penetrate the apparently simple yet rhythmically complicated themes, interrupted again and again by Monk's solo escapades on the piano. On the stage, Monk often stood up and jigged around the piano like a lumbering dancing bear, with one of his distinctive hats on his head; he plonks down on the piano stool after the Charlie Rouse solo; his enormous feet tap back and forth to the beat; he constantly fiddles with the ring on his finger; and he creates the most wonderful improvisations ever heard with his 'false' fingering.

Calling all jazz fans: Listen to Thelonious Monk, and you will have a ball - most especially if you put this super disc with the promising title "It's Monks Time" on your turntable!

Musicians:

Thelonious Monk (piano)

Charlie Rouse (tenor saxophone)

Butch Warren (bass)

Ben Riley (drums)

Teo Macero (producer)

Recording: January - March 1964

Production: Teo Macero

About Speakers Corner

At the beginning of the 90s, in the early days of audiophile vinyl re-releases, the situation was fairly straightforward. Companies such as DCC, Mobile Fidelity, Classic Records and, of course, Speakers Corner all maintained a mutual, unwritten ethical code: we would only use analogue tapes to manufacture records.

During the course of the present vinyl hype, many others have jumped on the bandwagon in the hope of securing a corner of the market. Very often they are not so ethical and use every imaginable source to master from: CDs, LPs, digital files, MP3s - or employed existant tools from the 80s and 90s for manufacturing.

A digital delay is gladly used when cutting a lacquer disc because tape machines with an analogue delay have become quite rare and are therefore expensive. When cutting the lacquer, the audio signal is delayed by one LP revolution against the signal, which controls the cutter head, and for this a digital delay is very often employed. Of course, the resultant sound signal is completely digital and thus only as good as this delay.

We should like to emphasise that Speakers Corner Records on principle only uses the original master tape as the basis for the entirely analogue cutting of lacquer discs. In addition, the pressing tool is newly manufactured as a matter of principle. We have one digital recording in our catalogue (Alan Parsons / Eye In The Sky"), but even in this particular case we used the analogue tapes for cutting.

We only employ existing tools for manufacturing if an improved result is not forthcoming, e.g. the title Elvis Is Back, which was mastered by Steve Hoffman and Kevin Gray, or several titles from our Philips Classics series, which in any case Willem Makkee cut from the original masters at the Emil Berliner Studios in the 90s. It goes without saying that we only used the mother and that new tools were made for our production.

To put it in a nutshell: we can ensure you that our releases are free from any kind of digital effects - excluding the exception above - and that the lacquer discs are newly cut.

1. Lulu's Back In Town2. Memories Of You3. Stuffy Turkey4. Brake's Sake5. Nice Work If You Can Get It6. Shuffle Soil

New York Is Now!

Part Of The Blue Note 75th Anniversary Vinyl Reissue Campaign

Recorded during the same session that resulted in the Love Call album (in late April and early May of 1968), New York Is Now is one of the true curiosity pieces in Ornette's catalog. With a rhythm section comprised of ex-Coltrane sidemen Jimmy Garrison and Elvin Jones as well as tenorist Dewey Redman, Ornette is, in some sense, at odds with himself here. This particular rhythm section is a lot more modally than harmonically propelled -- especially Jones, who sounds here like he doesn't know what to do with himself in the restrictive tempos -- and creates a complex set of issues for Coleman and Redman to contend with. That said, on The Garden of Souls, which opens the album, Coleman makes the most of this sprightly, energetic rhythm team and moves through quotations of Moon River, Danny Boy, and even Paul Muriat's Love Is Blue during his solo, before shifting the harmonics around and anchoring them somewhere between E flat 7 and E major. On Broadway Blues, Coleman uses Monk liberally in his melodic conception, and he and Redman have a go at turning a seven-note vamp into all sorts of knotty material for soloing -- and you can almost feel Jones smile as the tempo reaches triple time as the saxophonists race each other through it. And while this date is of only marginal interest on some level (for true hardcore Ornette-ophiles), it is pleasant and amusing if not amazing -- with the exception of For a Commercial, which features Ornette's fine violin playing above the rest of the band in the mix (what a downer). ~ Thom Jurek

Sketches of Spain, Milestones, Kind of Blue, Four & More, and In a Silent Way Also Available from Mobile Fidelity

Miles Davis first album for Columbia, Round About Midnight, represents both the beginning of a three-plus-decade relationship with the famed label as well as the start of an extended collaboration with then-unknown saxophonist John Coltrane. As one of the eras only complete start-to-finish full-length LPs, the 1957 set stands as a hard-bop benchmarka summation of the styles that came before its creation, an immersion into the periods cutting-edge strains, and a hint of the rivoluse modalism that would follow.

Part of Mobile Fidelitys Miles Davis catalog restoration series, Round About Midnight now resonates with a physical palpability and emotional heft never before experienced. Mastered from the original master tapes and pressed at RTI, this unsurpassed 180g LP edition traces the individual paths each musician takes in contributing to the whole, whether its pianist Red Garlands left hand spinning actinoid chords or Coltrane infusing a tune with harmony-defying fills that suggest arabesque patterns. Recorded at three separate sessions, the music has never sounded so cohesive, immediate, or involving.

Historically, few jazz records claim the significance boasted by Round About Midnight. The albums creationand the assembly of Davis quintet, which also includes Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jonesstems from the headliners rousing rendition of the title-inspired track, Round Midnight, a Thelonious Monk standard, at the 1955 Newport Jazz Festival. Stunning the audience with an interpretation that witnessed him personalize the composition with a brooding tone made possible via employment of his soon-to-be-trademark Harmon mute, Davis redefined perspective and possibility, taking ownership of the ballad as his own, and further improving upon its reach in the studio. It wasnt the composers only surprise.

'Round About Midnight thrives due to diversity and consistency, a rare combination epitomized by the first-rate selection and astonishing performance of pensive ballads, bebop classics, pop standards, and folk pieces. Witness the counterpoint exchanges during Ah-Leu-Cha and its Dixieland shades. Soak up the progressive drama and swinging tempos on All of You and Bye Bye Blackbird. Delight in the mÉlange of latticed textures and schematic moods throughout the sequence, here presented in gorgeous fidelity, zeroing in on Davis warm, plush, rich, and close-up trumpet timbres and how, by playing his instrument right near the microphone, he infuses the arrangements with the sort of daring intimacy embraced by two lovers.

Tension, suggestiveness, calm, mystery, nostalgia: All here. Gather now, Round About Midnight. Slip on a pair of shades, draw the curtains, slouch into a chair, and light a cigarette. This is Miles and Co. at their best. Hipness personified.

Genius Of Modern Music Volume One

Part Of The Blue Note 75 Anniversary Vinyl Reissue Campaign

Belonging in every jazz collection, volume one of Thelonious Monk's 1947 10" Genius of Modern Music features the first sessions Monk recorded as a leader. In 1956 Blue Note reissued this iconic album as a 12" and added previously unissued tracks. It is impossible to overstate the importance of these sessions as they include some of the earliest Monk recordings that would become standards, including "Round Midnight" which is now one of the most popular jazz compositions ever recorded. Genius of Modern Music will be reissued as part of an overall Blue Note 75th anniversary vinyl initiative spearheaded by current Blue Note Records President, Don Was.

Mulligan Meets Monk

Three decades ago, when Riverside paired Thelonious Monk and Gerry Mulligan on this album, it seemed a daring move. These two appeared to represent opposite ends of the jazz spectrum, separated by geography (East Coast and West) as much as by style (bop vs. cool). Actually, it was a rather safe project: producer Orrin Keepnews had learned that the two men were friends; even more importantly, it is now clear that both were the kind of revolutionaries who had substantial (and not dissimilar) respect for jazz tradition. The album was, as advertised, a meeting of giants, but its most lasting value may be as proof that there was a strong bond connecting theoretically opposing forms of early modern jazz.

Genius Of Modern Music: Volume 2

Volume two of the two-volume Genius of Modern Music exemplifies Thelonious Monk as a full band leader andconsists almost entirely of original compositions. Sidemen include trumpeter Kenny Dorham, bassist Al McKibbon,saxophonist Sahib Shihab as well as Art Blakey and Max Roach. Both volumes of Genius of Modern Music belongin every jazz collection. Genius of Modern Music will be reissued in its original 10" form as part of an overall BlueNote vinyl initiative.

1. Four In One2. Who Knows?3. Nice Work (If You Can Get It)4. In Walked Bud5. Humph6. Straight No Chaser7. Suburban Eyes8. Ask Me Now

Brilliant Corners

Few composers or improvisers can match the originality of pianist Thelonious Monk. Quirky yet rigorously logical, Monk's playful but always purposeful choice of skewed melodies and interrupted rhythm patterns gave the bebop movement, and jazz in total, a new sound that was totally modern. Although he created a surprisingly limited body of compositions, his impact on the vocabulary and canon of jazz is second to none, including such prolific giants as Duke Ellington. Brilliant Corners is a triumph of both performance and conception: the two small-group sessions, anchored by Monk, drummer Max Roach, and the bass work of either Oscar Pettiford or Paul Chambers, feature superb front-line performances by saxophonists Sonny Rollins and the tragically under-recorded Ernie Henry, as well as trumpeter Clark Terry. The title track, which centers the collection, is one of Monk's most unconventional pieces, skirting whole-tone, chromatic and Lydian scales; a version of Pannonica finds Monk doubling on celeste, while the band stretches out on Bemsha Swing and the blues Ba-lue Bolivar Ba-lues-are. - Fred Goodman

Thelonious Monk with John Coltrane

Thelonious Monk with John Coltrane is a 1961 album by Thelonious Monk issued on Jazzland Records, a subsidiary of Riverside Records. It consists of material recorded four years earlier when Monk worked extensively with John Coltrane, issued after Coltrane had become a leader and jazz star in his own right.

How The Spark Loves The Tinder

Monk Parker releases his debut solo record "How The Spark Loves The Tinder" on the Bronze Rat label (London/Berlin - home to The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Gemma Ray, Solex and more). Featuring over 30 musicians, it was recorded over a two-year period of illness & dislocation following the breakup of his previous band The Low Lows and Parker's subsequent move to Austin TX.

Monk's Dream

Monk's Dream is the Columbia Records debut release featuring the Thelonious Monk Quartet: Monk (piano), Charlie Rouse (tenor sax), John Ore (bass), and Frankie Dunlop (drums). Jazz scholars and enthusiasts alike also heralded this combo as the best Monk had been involved with for several years. Although he would perform and record supported by various other musicians, the tight -- almost telepathic -- dimensions that these four shared has rarely been equalled in any genre... Monk's Dream is recommended, with something for every degree of Monk enthusiast.

In Italy

Featuring standout renditions of Straight, No Chaser, Bemsha Swing, and Rhythm-A-Ning, In Italy captures pianist/composer Thelonious Monk flexing his trademark idiosyncratic chops on what would be his final recording for the Riverside label. Cut live in concert while on an extensive European tour, this set from 1961 serves as a final reminder of the legendary catalog Monk built while recording for Riverside and hinted at the genius yet to be recorded. Accompanied by tenor saxophonist Charlie Rouse, bassist John Ore, and drummer Frankie Dunlop, Monk shines here, turning in more of the style the set him apart from his peers as an individualistic player capable of consistently expressive, stylistic and sophisticated performances.

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